Space combat games

Space War (1960)

Inspired by Doc Smith's Lensman novels of galactic conquest, university computer hacker Steve "Slug" Russell invented Space War, a simple space combat game between two human players, one flying a thin rocket ship and the other a bulky wedge-shaped craft. Players used rotating paddles and trigger switches to fire a series of missiles at each other. The game became wildly popular and was even distributed with new system software by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).

Later enhancements to the game included a realistic star field background, based on the actual positions and brightness of stars in the sky (this was dubbed "Expensive Planetarium"), and an emergency "warp" button that could transport the player to a random area on the map. But the most important innovation was the addition of a star in the center of the screen and simulated gravity, which added a huge element of strategy to the game.

Interestingly, Russell tried adding more realistic torpedoes that would sometimes fail to fire, but annoyed players soon went into the code and changed it back. It was an early victory for fun over strict realism.

Star Raiders (1979)

The Atari 400/800 series were ahead of their time, and so was Star Raiders. The game made the leap into 3D, requiring players to think about space combat in an entirely new manner.

The game involved the player as the pilot of a lone combat craft, trying to rid the galaxy of an alien infestation. Long-range scanners could show the player where the enemy was marshalling his forces, and where the all-important star bases were located. The player could refuel and rearm at any star base, but had to plan ahead to make sure he didn't squander these resources.

Although the game used very simplistic scaled sprites for the enemy craft, it still kept track of their movements in three dimensions. To help the player, a short-range radar screen was displayed that could locate enemy ships ahead and behind him. This 3D radar display would be used in all future space games to come.

Elite (1984)

Elite created its own sub-genre

Hardware: BBC Micro

2 MHz 6502

32KB RAM

20k VRAM

4 colors

320x256 resolution (later ported to IBM PC, C64 and others)

Elite represented a revolution, not just in space combat games but computer games entirely. Not only were the graphics improved by representing spaceships and planets in 3D wire frames with hidden line removal, but the scope of the game improved significantly as well. A huge universe was generated using a clever algorithm that stored hundreds of different planetary names and configurations as a mathematical formula, rather than as raw data. This allowed a much larger and richer game environment to be stored than could ordinarily fit in the small memory of the computers at that time.

The game featured not only space combat but also trading, and players could build up money to purchase new weapons and better ships. There were multiple factions at work in the universe, and the player could have a different reputation with each of them depending on his actions. As in Star Raiders, space stations acted as points of refueling and re-arming.

As the player improved in the game, her ranking went up. The ultimate ranking was that of "Elite," which took hundreds of hours of play to attain.

Wing Commander (1990)

Wing Commander brought everything together in one package

Hardware: IBM PC

286 16 MHz CPU

640KB RAM

64k VRAM

256 colors (VGA)

320x200 resolution

Chris Roberts was inspired by the combat in Star Wars when he created Wing Commander. When he found that he couldn't get the rights to the Star Wars universe, he designed an entirely new universe himself. The cat-like Kilrathi were the fearsome enemies of humanity, and the game was loosely based on the carrier battles of World War II.

The player was thrust into the war against the Kilrathi as a pilot on the carrier Tiger's Claw. The graphics were revolutionary at the time, simulating 3D using detailed bitmaps that were scaled and rotated on the fly. Each ship was built in a 3D modeling program (ironically on an Amiga, which would not get a version of the game itself until years later) and rendered at various angles to create the bitmaps. The process of pre-rendering the bitmaps kept the display speed high, and allowed details such as lighting and reflections that would not appear in games for years to come. However, because only so many bitmaps were rendered for each ship, there was a certain jerkiness as they turned around in a circle.

The game play was fast and furious. Players had various weapons (lasers, mass drivers, neutron cannons) and missiles to hurl at their enemies, who would taunt the player with text messages. Missions included patrols, protection of transports, and strike missions against enemy capital ships. When back on board the carrier, players could interact with the other pilots by clicking on them at the bar. Each pilot had his or her own back story, and would fly differently in combat.

The game went on to sell over five million copies, a ridiculous number given the size of the market at the time, and spawned four direct sequels and numerous related games.

Wing Commander III (1994)

Wing Commander III broke both new ground and sales records.

Hardware: IBM PC

486 66 MHz

32 MB RAM

4 MB VRAM

3D card

SVGA (65,535 colors)

CD-ROM

640x480 resolution

Wing Commander III came on four CD-ROM discs, and for the first time contained live-action video with actors working against blue-screened virtual sets. In an ironic twist, Mark Hamill, who was most famous for playing Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, played the title role of Maverick. Other notables were Malcom McDowell who played Admiral Tolwyn, and the hilarious Thomas Wilson (Biff in Back to the Future) as Maniac.

The game used the Strike Commander engine, redesigned to support SVGA (640x480 in 256 colors) resolution. Enemy ships were fully modeled in 3D and every polygon was texture mapped. Enemy pilots now taunted you over the video link, with every voice recorded in stereo sound. The impressively detailed cockpit could be turned off to get a larger view of the action.

The game featured some stunning cut scenes, some of which were shown to the player in the middle of combat in order to try and lead him into a trap. The final showdown involved the end of the decades-old war with the Kilrathi, but there would be other enemies for future games to explore.

Freespace 2 (1999)

Freespace 2 remains well-loved and updated to this day

Hardware: IBM PC

Pentium II 200 MHz

64 MB RAM

64 MB VRAM

3D card

SVGA (16.7 million colors)

CD-ROM

1024x768 resolution

Freespace 2 was the sequel to Descent: Freespace, which was itself built on the impressive 3D engine from the game Descent. In Freespace, the enemy had been a group of aliens called Vasudans, but by the end of the game an even more dangerous enemy called the Shivans had forced a Human-Vasudan alliance. In the sequel, a battered allied fleet must deal with dissent and civil war before engaging the Shivans one more time.

The game supported many new features found in 3D graphics cards, such as colored lighting, and featured some of the most beautiful backgrounds ever to be found in space games. Sadly, the cockpit itself has gone for good, replaced by a heads-up display.

The game was infinitely modifiable thanks to a campaign editor and user-programmed tools that allowed modders to build and texture entirely new ships. Recently the source code to the game was released to the public, and resourceful coders have added entirely new features, such as specular highlighting, to the existing game code.